Are Christians Crucifying Christ Again?

A large wooden cross was on the stage, during the service believers were invited to nail their sins to it and leave them there.  This is the purpose of the work Messiah did on the cross, we can be sure that our sins have been forgiven, sins often committed under the influence of pagan religions. People stood in two long lines to nail their sins to the cross. This was intended to be a powerful visual. After everyone was finished, the Pastor invited everyone to come to the Easter service on Sunday to celebrate the Resurrection and to the Sunrise service.

I close my eyes but I still see, this time I see my Messiah being crucified yet again, and for many of the sins that should have been left behind long ago–pagan influence among his people, I am not talking about the Jews who long ago gave up their idolatry, I am talking to the church, both Catholic and Protestant. I see his blood shed again, suffering again because we continue naming Christian services by pagan names, hold them at pagan times (spring solstice & sunrise).  I know, in our hearts the meaning has changed so it doesn’t matter when we have these services or what we call them, right? But I have to ask, are we not in some way, even if nominally in our own opinion, honoring the influence of paganism? It is important we remember and celebrate the work of our Messiah, isn’t also important to do it in a way he is pleased with? Pagan practices left in the faith and passed down to us Protestants by our Catholic fathers who in previous generations could or would not fully weed out the pagan celebrations, preferring anything to Jewish customs due to a medieval prejudice against Judaism has robbed us of the rich heritage of our Jewish Messiah. Apparently,  gentile pagans, their converts, delighted in such celebrations as the spring solstice celebrations of Eroester* or Ishtar too much to completely leave them behind, but that was over a thousand years ago. Contrast the Jewish fathers of the Christian church at its birth who kept Passover on the 14th of Nissan and taught our Passover lamb was Jesus and who proclaimed Him as the First Fruits of the Resurrection–on the feast of First Fruits three days later. Is it by coincidence the Lord instituted these feasts they way he did in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy? I wonder what Peter, Paul, and John’s reaction would be to calling the passion of Christ “EASTER”. Why do we today return to pagan names for an essentially Jewish event? Why do we honor the lies and fables of our pagan fathers? Are we gentiles still to connected to our Pagan past to inherit the full portion of a pure faith? Do we prefer to have ‘Easter’ at spring solstice rather than celebrate Passover and First Fruits Resurrection as Messiah did? Why not have commemoration of the crucifixion when it happened? Why crucify Christ again by returning even in name and date to pagan practices???? Many in Israel went to the Temple to worship and sacrifice in ancient times, yet, Jeremiah, the prophet tells us that the time came when they compromised with their pagan neighbors. While at the temple, they also baked bread and wept for Tammuz.  His people went into the diaspora for their sins. Paul says in Hebrews 6:6 to beware falling away from the true faith, particularly if you have tasted the spirit and been enlightened–those who fall back into false religion crucify Him anew. Christians are told it does not matter but I worry for the church if after all this time we still think it is not important to weed out pagan practices even if only in name. Informed Christian leaders do not deny these pagan influences* but say that times have changed and these small things aren’t important because they don’t matter to us anymore, they have been divested of their power in our hearts…but, if so what makes it so hard to change and most importantly what makes you think it doesn’t matter to HIM what we call our services and when we hold them just because He hasn’t judged us for it…..yet?

*How Passover Became Easter?

Kingly Insights for Follower’s of Jesus

H & R Block advertising is loudly proclaiming with enthusiasm that it is tax season, and a person might or might not win $1,000 dollars by getting their taxes done at H&R Block this tax season.  Funny that taxes is one of the things that come to mind when I read this phrase in Psalm 119 about choosing the Lord over dishonest gain. Putting aside the many questions about the government exacting money from some in order to dispense it others as one form some might legitimately call, “dishonest gain”, the purpose of this post is to think on the scale of the individual person’s pursuit of an honest life.

Psalms 119 is all about the beauty and value in following the Commandments, precepts and testimonies of the law. King David made it abundantly clear in his inspired writing that the law of G_d was a wonderful, delightful thing, he says in verse 36 an interesting contrast between the law of the Lord and dishonest gain.  He says, “Incline my heart to your Your testimonies and not to dishonest gain.” What, first of all, does he mean by dishonest gain?  The obvious answers we can see our financial or physical gains that come from dealing dishonestly in business or  financial dealings with our neighbor.  This can be a small things such as knowingly accepting more change that we are due from a cashier in the grocery store or as large a thing as a Bernie Madoff style rip off of people’s income and retirement, lying about the returns one gets.  How about lying to the state or Federal government on our income taxes in order to keep money we have earned? We may feel entitled to lie because we earned the money fairly, honestly, and feel the government is taking too much, but doesn’t lying about it cause an honest gain to become a dishonest one? Those are the obvious questions about how we conduct our daily business, but what about a spiritual level? Are the spiritual gains that could be considered dishonest.  The most important or significant thing I feel about this verse is that the author, David, speaking from his personal experience lets us know the effect the law has on one’s heart.  It will cause us to incline to the divine rather than the flesh.  Yeshua said render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto G_d what is G_d’s. Therefore we know the material physical things that we have to render to our government is one thing, but there is something else altogether in the spiritual realm which is due to our Creator. What I find amazing is that when I followed some of the modern teachings of the modern evangelical movement they talk about the law as if it is a curse, but here we see the aspect of the law that Paul said is spiritual, that following the law of the Lord brings righteousness and causes us to have the new heart of the new covenant.  On a spiritual level there are those who believe in a sinner’s right to a dishonest gain.  That because of grace all my sins are covered, past, present and future, therefore they boldly go on sinning. One must wonder how much of their repentance is real and how much is their own vanity as they go out and demand others to forgive them and continue in their own way.  This is a way that the so-called, “dispensation of grace” has hurt the church.  The modern church teaches its followers to assiduously abhor what it calls “works based” salvation systems, using the law as a primary example of such a thing.  So when a Christian reads Psalm 119 they are intellectually mystified! How can the law be righteousness? How can the law teach me to walk at liberty (v.24)? The proper understanding of the law, according to David, results in the “enlargement” of his heart.  This to me is speaking of the new heart, the more compassionate heart, the heart Jesus had. It is a wide open, spacious heart with room for forgiveness, a room that can see beauty, truth and righteousness because it is seeking to understand the Lord through his Torah. Am I wrong to say it is the exact heart he wants his follower’s to have, the new heart of Ezekial 36:26 Ezekial 11:19 is a heart of flesh instead of stone? It is actually our soul that is being opened up to G_d-mking room for his radiance and His glory and His love.  Isn’t it amazing that this heart of the new covenant (Jer. 31:31) is found in the Torah, the law of the Lord? How can anyone reasonably call this a curse? How can anyone call this bondage? I fear for those who slander the Lord in this way, because the Lord has cautioned me in my spirit not to rebel against Him, as those who died in the desert did. Looking into the law, is looking into the face of G_d as Moses did, and his face shone the radiance of G_d and produced a document written with the finger of G_d (Exodus 31:19 NASB).

Turn Your Eyes away from Vanity

v.37 David says something else that I find interesting “Turn away my eyes from vanity”. Let us start with the obvious again, vanity is usually associated, is that which is self-promoting, self-ish, self-important. We know that all things that fall into the category of the flesh are actually vanity in two ways that come immediately to my mind, one being the obvious, self-love and arrogance of a vain person, the other being the pointlessness of all  material things made only for our temporary pleasure and consumption. The writer of Ecclesiastes seems to mourn this condition when he bemoans, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity (Ecclesiastes 1:2 KJV).  All of the things that are physical come and go, but what about the spiritual. When I think of all the things I ought to be tuning my eyes away from, I begin to feel a bit guilty.  Perhaps the television and movies have a great deal of vanity stored in them in terms of wasting my valuable time, filling my mind with ideas that either make me afraid or generally just distract me from more productive uses of my mind. The eyes  and the mind are associated together in this way of what I am taking into my mind through the windows of my soul, my eyes.  The phrase, “Turn my eyes away from” is very much like the “Thou shalt not” of the commandments. I  shall turn my eyes away from murder, has more than just the implication that we will not commit the act, but also we will not allow our mind to dwell on the conception of murder.  This brings us to what Jesus said about the commandments, “You have heard it said, you shall not murder, and whoever murders shall be in danger of judgment, but I say to you that anyone who is angry with his brother without cause shall be in danger of judgment.” Turning away from vanity, I believe, really means turning away from our own flesh, our own desires, to turn our minds from dwelling on those things that are foreign to the righteousness of the Lord revealed in His word is a description of walking in the Spirit, this is the work the spirit helps us to do every day.  When I say revealed in His word, I mean his whole word.  David, without benefit of the teaching of Jesus, Paul or Peter came to the same teachings they taught by way of the Torah. The commandments, the prophets, the precepts the testimonies of the saints, as Jesus taught on the Mount of Olives, that sin begins in the mind. In order to walk in the spirit we must begin with the step of humble obedience turning our eyes away from vanity.

Did Jesus Declare all foods clean?

I had an interesting discussion this week with a friend about whether Jesus declared all foods clean in Mark 7:19. My friend and I agree the translators may not have gotten this one quite right–Jesus declared that food is purged,  is just as correct an interpretation of the text in the Greek as the one that most modern translations use. Food is taken in and purged or eliminated from the body, whether one washes once or seventeen times, right hand first or left hand first, handwashing rituals, while they may have value in teaching bodily and ritual cleanliness, do not affect the inner heart and mind where sin originates. Clearly, the context of the verse was not to teach about eating whatever one wishes to eat, but understanding how the heart and mind need to be cleansed and purged of sin first, then wash our hands in order to be clean both inwardly and outwardly. If we eat in obedience and faith what our father has commanded-Then our conscience and our hands can both be clean.

There are lots of health reasons to eat Biblically clean foods, but anyone with internet can find that out with a good google search.  I can give a person some ideas where to look if need be.  But I am more concerned  with the spiritual aspect.

Many Christians believe that according to Mark 7:19, Jesus declared all foods clean. What I found out was that the phrase, “Thus Jesus declared all foods clean isn’t in the Greek manuscripts. It is added because the translators translated the text according to their own understanding. They did bring a bias to their choice in translating. However, their translation is not without reason. That being said here are some hard facts to consider in deciding how to understand this verse.  The word ‘declared’ is nowhere in the text.  The word clean could just as accurately be translated purged, which would make sense since that is the bodily function Jesus was referring to when he said food is eaten and purged from the body. The larger context of Mark 7 isn’t an argument with the Pharisees about which foods were clean or unclean, it was not even about whether one should eat with clean hands, it was about whether we can wash away with water the uncleanness we have within us.  The heart is where the problem lies. The Pharisees thought that because the disciples of Yeshua had not ritually washed their hands before they handled the food and drink, the possibility existed that contamination of ritual impurities had made the otherwise kosher food ritually unclean.  In the worst case scenario (as far as the Pharisees were concerned), idolatrous contamination might be transferred to the food, and if eaten, would be considered participation in idolatry (eating food offered to idols Ex. 34:15). The problem Yeshua was addressing was that the Pharisees were trying to apply a ritual of hand washing as a cure for an idolatrous heart.  Idolatry is a sin of the heart it does not wash off our hands, just as the guilt of condemning an innocent man could not be washed off of Herod’s hands when he condemned Jesus to the cross.  When we become ritually unclean we can fix that with ritual cleaning, but the sin of eating unclean food is different from the sin of touching an unclean world. We often rub up against pagan ideas, we live in a heathen world and try as best we can to keep ourselves untouched by idolatry, but try as we might, we sometimes get soiled. and the sin has to be dealt with. But the sin is in our hearts before our hands ever get a chance to act on our evil intentions.  This is a much deeper discussion than what the translator tried to make it about, or perhaps thought it was about.

This interpretation, that Jesus was declaring all foods clean is added by later generations of the emerging Christian Church, which wanting to distance themselves from the synagogue and thus from Torah observance, (and replace Israel with themselves-replacement theology) found in Yeshua’s words an interpretation that fit their current needs, even if it did go contrary to the larger context of Mark 7 as well as Yeshua’s explicit teaching about His view of Torah found in Matthew 5:17. (Hegg, T. Why We Keep Torah: 10 Persistent Questions p.16

Why should Christians Care?

Well, actually, I didn’t used to care as a Christian, I often ate many things God has said not to eat, thinking that Jesus had ‘delivered’ me from the necessity of obeying Old Testament laws that today seem archaic and backward.  I thought it was a question of freedom and grace.  According to Mark 7-God is concerned with the idolatry in my heart that food in and of itself isn’t the source of sin, it is what I am thinking and doing in my mind and heart. If I am willing in my heart to obey my father–even if I don’t understand it, even if it doesn’t make sense to my modern sensibilities then He is the one God of my heart.  If I am more willing to obey my own selfish desire, who is really Lord over me? Me or God? So, Christians who think this verse is declaring all foods clean, may find with deeper understanding that Yeshua is saying all thoughts need to be subject to our Lord. No one offers me food offered to false gods in temples in modern times, so I don’t have to be afraid of accidentally eating food offered to foreign gods. Ironically, I am thinking, it is still possible that I am being idolatrous in what I eat if I am eating in disobedience to the clearly stated commandments of Adonai.

Exodus 13– Prepare for War!

What do I love more, my way or His way?

Exodus 13:17-17:16

The first few words of this section set the stage for the testing of God’s people, Israel.  The words are “After he had let go”.  This is referring to Pharoah: After Pharoah had let go of Israel and let them go to serve God. he changed his mind and set out to retrieve the entire population with the greatest army in the world at that time. This portion bares witness of the great deliverance of God at the Red Sea.  The Red Sea was a test, but only the first of a series of tests.  God miraculously saves and redeems Israel from bondage in Egypt but immediately begins preparing and providing for them to be engaged in battle.  This dispels all our illusions that after meeting God in our life everything will be wonderful, easy and perfect. Instead of peace and rest, the people are prepared for warfare. The spiritual implications are easy to see.  Once we overcome our bondage and gain freedom through the redemption of the Lord, through the work of Messiah, we are then engaged in a battle! Sometimes that battle is with the world, and sometimes it is with my own selfish desire or evil intentions, but rest assured it is a battle but the Lord is in it with us-Praise Him!

What does it matter if I worship on Sunday or Saturday?

My heart shall become Torah, and Torah shall become my heart.  What do I mean by that? Torah, is God’s instruction in love and righteousness.  We see in the Bible the destiny, ultimately of mankind is to dwell with God in the New Heaven and the New Earth. In this new heaven and new earth will there be any sorrow, sadness, any hatred? No, no more tears, no more injustice, a world of peace, love and plenty with God dwelling in the midst of us.  In this story we see the unrolling of the evolvement of the human heart from a stony one to a tender one of flesh that can feel the pain of others as well as the joy and approval of our father. The more I give myself to the commands the more they take over my heart. This change is declared in the scriptures. We see the covenant of God between man and God sealed in the flesh by circumcision.  The new covenant of Jer 31:31 describes not a new Torah, not a change in the law, but a change in where the Torah is written it moves from the tablets of stone to the human heart. This new covenant brings about the desired result that G_d is looking for in a holy nation. A nation of priests, who establish the law by following it with purpose and love for the Lord. Following a law strictly for the observance of the written word without engaging the heart, mind and soul does not please God nor bring about salvation.  Following a law strictly for the observance of the written word without engaging the heart, mind and soul does not please God nor bring about salvation. We fulfill the law from our heart-felt desire to obey God as He has revealed Himself in the commandments given to his people. So what does it matter if we have the right heart, people will ask.  Obviously, we all know that even doing things with the right heart has its limits.  One cannot blatantly disobey the commandments and say we are doing something with the right heart.  Yet, this is what Christian people say all the time, “God knows my heart.”  Yes, that is true, of course He knows the thoughts and intentions of ones heart, which should cause us to be careful, because our hearts are known for being deceptive, wicked, and tainted with evil.  It is dangerous for us to put too much confidence in how we ourselves feel about things in our hearts.  I have often made bad choices with the right intention in my heart. Still, when it comes down to the little things, like what day we worship, what foods we eat, we can call these the lesser things can we not. Certainly it is important first, to have the weightier matters correct, to understand salvation is not by works alone but by faith and one’s works are the proof that faith was real.  The weightier matters of justice and mercy as given in the 10 Commandments. However, many people feel that the lighter, less weighty matters are therefore, less important and can be adapted, changed or even completely abandoned.  Is this what Jesus taught? What did He say about the Law, and when he chastised the Pharisees for using the traditions of men to annull the laws of G_d, he did not tell them it  is alright to neglect the smaller points of the law as long as you keep the weightier ones, instead he told them they should have done both.  Small things may matter very much to the Savior.  It is clear that Jesus always pointed people to the authority of G_d.  He said He had not come to abolish but to fulfill the law.  Now that Jesus has fulfilled it, are we to therefore abandon it? The Apostle Paul said we establish the law by our faith (Romans 3:31).  One of the Ten Commandments that has been trifled with is the keeping of the Sabbath in Biblical terms.  The ancient idea of Sabbath keeping is said to have been changed by the Apostles.  Because they broke bread together on the first day of the week and met on the first day of the week in houses of the followers of Jesus, many Christians interpret this to mean that the Sabbath has either been done away with or changed to Sunday, the first day of the week because Jesus resurrected on the first day of the week.  Two points need to be brought up in opposition to this belief.  One, because it is a Catholic interpretation that all faithful reformationists should reject outright  see the link:http://www.sabbathtruth.com/free-resources/article-library/id/916/catholic-church-admits-they-made-the-change. Or here is another one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrB21mc2fmI Second, the scripture that instituted the Sabbath as the seventh day and the commandments to keep it are never changed.  We see over and over in the New Testament Apostles entering the synagogue on Sabbath, mentions of the feasts of the Old Testament and the Apostles often defending themselves against the accusation that they are trying to teach people to break the Law of Moses or the traditions of the elders. They used this as the place not only to proclaim the Messiah and His salvation, they also expected believer’s even gentiles would be learning about Torah from the synagogues that covered the known world according to Acts 15.  No place in the New Testament will you see the Apostles doing anything strictly forbidden by Moses.  Why would they? Since Moses received his commandments from the same place that Shaul received His Gospel, from G_d.  The Catholic church, nor any of the Apostles have any right or authority to change any of the law.  Jesus said clearly that not one aspect of the law would be changed until the heaven and earth passed away.  He said, in his kingdom, if you want to be least in his Kingdom, break the law and teach others to do so as well. (Matthew 15) Where then does the idea that the law is bondage and we have been freed from it? Clearly Paul’s writings have either been misunderstood or the vision of Messiah he saw was clearly a different Messiah from the one that preached the repentance and baptism that we read of in Matthew.  Some of Paul’s writings may be hard to understand, but it is clearly arrogant to simply toss out the law that gentiles do not understand simply because we do not how to parse it. To return to the question does it matter if I worship on Sunday or Saturday? Clearly this depends on how one views the command to keep the seventh day Sabbath. I believe in the Resurrection, I believe in salvation by grace, I believe Yeshua rose immediately after Sabbath, which is the first day of the week by Jewish reckoning, but nowhere did Yeshua tell us to change the laws He, Himself followed.  I guess it depends on how closely a person desires to walk in His footsteps.  Why would we want to follow our Messiah by doing things differently than He, Himself did?  I want to be like Jesus not just in the weightier matters, but in the small ones.  If my beloved asks me to prepare him a dinner on Friday night, you better believe I am going to do it on Friday not Sunday. It only matters if you believe G_d says what He means and means what He says and that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Son of G_d..

Fall Feast Days

Leviticus 23:2

Whose feasts are they? If you think they are exclusively the feasts of the Jews, look again-what does the word say? “Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations these are MY FEASTS.  The children of Israel are the conduit, they are to proclaim the feasts of the LORD, but the feasts were conceived, initiated and sanctified by God Himself! He asked his people to celebrate and keep these feasts for a reason.  When did he ever ask the people to stop keeping these feasts?  Some will still say that they were given to Jews and not to Christians.  However, we see in scripture that it is the nations, namely, gentiles, who are allowed to enter in, to live within Israel throughout the history of the Jewish nation. Those who wanted to know God, to live with Israel were called the “stranger among you”.  Over time, one could learn the ways of the God of the Bible from the Jews, and enjoy greater and greater participation through being assimilated into the nation of Israel–and not the other way around.  When the Lord, Jesus came, he proclaimed the good news that atonement and forgiveness can be made through faith, but he also taught and followed the Biblical laws and feasts. In his own words, he did not come to abolish any part of the law, make no mistake, the holidays are part of God’s laws, precepts and ordinances.  Further, the arguement has been made that being grafted into Israel as Christians often quote and rarely understand. Most understand that accepting God’s son means that there is a profound change in our purpose and motivation for life. The question is how much of our lifestyle will we submit to Biblical teachings? Indeed, in the first few centuries of the faith, the believers in Jesus (Yeshua), often kept and attended these feasts. Some believe that the Apostle Paul and Christ Himself taught that these feasts were abolished at the cross when grace was initiated based on their interpretation of a few of Pau’s teachings and Jesus’ lack of sympathy for some of the teachings of the Pharisees.  On the the other hand there are those that teach there is no biblical mandate for such creating a completely new faith running parallel to but not completely following the entire Bible. In fact, it has been proposed, and with no small merit, that it was the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. and with it the dispersion of the Messianic believers from Jerusalem that destroyed the link between the original practice of the faith in Jerusalem to a more westernized leadership in the church.  History shows that when this dispersion took place, the Western church in Rome became the head of the movement and led the followers of the way, away from it’s Hebrew (Jewish) parentage into a more paganized, heirarchal faith later known as the Catholic Church.

All that to say, that first century believers who followed the Nazarene were Jewish, and as bold as they were about declaring their beliefs in the Messiah they never abandoned the Sabbaths, the holidays or the commandments. In fact, new converts were zealous for the law, according to James in Acts 20:21-24. Further, Paul attempts to convince those who have been lied to about him that does not teach the Jews among the Gentiles to forsake the commandments of Moses, circumcision, nor to walk according to the customs. This was a slander against Paul that still exists in the mind of most Christians today.  Paul, himself went to some trouble to attempt to prove these accusations FALSE.  My research indicates that far from abolishing the Jewish calendar, the church founders, in fact, followed the calendar and evidence can be produced they kept the seventh day sabbath, lived lives that allowed them to be a part of Temple and synogogue worship. For example, Peter kept the laws of clean and unclean eating so meticulously that when he had his famous dream in preparation for meeting Cornelius several decades after the establishment of the Jerusalem church he still had not eaten anything unclean. Why is that? If Jesus taught that all foods are clean, why was Peter still being ‘bound’ by the Levitical laws of clean and unclean foods? The clean/unclean discussion is not the purpose here, but only to make the point that the Apostles, the original fathers of the original congregations did not stop following the Jewish practices that are recorded in the Bible.  Everywhere in the New Testament can be foundreferences to the holidays, the synogogues, even commentary on Toray and the commentary on them that the Rabbis taught in the first century.

So, we see that there is nothing anti-grace, anti-christian, or cultic in following, keeping and celebrating holidays that God instituted for His people. But what significance do these holidays have to believers today.

History’s Road map/God’s calendar:

It is commonly taught among Messianic Jews, that the feasts declare Messiah! They are rehearsals or commemorations of the comings of Messiah, to Christians, Jesus! What could be more wonderful than that? So it is not surprising to find them mentioned in the Apostolic writings of the New Testament.

A Chart with citations for where God’s Festivals were referred to in the New Testament and how the followers of Jesus reverenced them.

The spring feasts celebrate and are all fulfilled by Jesus at His first coming and the fall feasts are yet to be fulfilled they demonstrate His second coming.

Since it is now fall, let us look at the celebrations in September:

Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashana)

Day of Atonement/Judgment (Yom Kippur)

Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot)

To all good Bible scholars, there should be some words that jump out at us, one trumpets, two judgement, these immediately evoke pictures of Revelation, of end times of the second coming. The order of events in Revelation, in Daniel and other prophetic books is clearly reflected, At the sound of the trump! The trumpet sound calls us to look up, our redemption is close at hand! It reminds us also that there is a time of accountability coming in which everyone will give an account of themselves.  Finally the feast of tabernacles commemorates when God dwelt with his people on earth, he in hte tent of meeting and they in their temporary dwellings, and so we see that we are in our temporary dwellings dwelling with him now, but, in the future there will be a future Millenial reign of Messiah! He will dwell on earth. Revelation 21:3 “And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them and they shall be His people,God Himself will be with them and be their God.” This seems to be a great day, God is looking forward to as much as we are! When we do this are we not physically proclaiming His coming as we are commanded to do? When we hear the trumpet of Rosh Hashana, we look up for his coming and when we rehearse for His coming by celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot, we show our belief that some day God will dwell with men.

Interesting Prophecy regarding the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles/Sukkot) in Zechariah 14.  That all those nations who went up to war against Israel and survive the radical and powerful coming of Messiah, will be required to go up to Jerusalem for the feast of booths every year. This is further indication that the feasts will be restored, renewed, reinstituted at the coming of the Jewish Messiah! One wonders, what blessing attends those who are wise enough to see these feasts and festivals as what they are, who being grafted into the commonwealth of Israel, spiritually, keep and celebrate them in obedience to the word of God.

We are currently in the time of the Gentiles, but the time of the Gentiles is a temporary blip on the radar of God’s eternal calendar. God Himself will dwell with us on a renewed earth. How are we to understand Mt. Sinai and the giving of the law? These blessings, these are shadows of what is to come, these lead us to the father if we are wise enough to seek Him. Below is a lesson on the feast of Trumpets or Rosh Hashanah by a Messianic Rabbi I hope you will be blessed!

Great Ideas for Rosh Hashanah

http://www.lowtwopair.com/rosh-hashanah/

Rosh Hashanah a holiday forgotten by modern believers but kept by Jesus–the first and founder of the faith!

The two days of Rosh Hashanah usher in the ten days of repentance, (also known as the ‘Days of Awe),according to Myjewishlearning.com’s article Rosh Hashanah101 (retrieved 8/24/2015).

The month before Rosh Hashanah, known as the month of Elul, (which we are now in), the shofar is sounded in synagogues. The sound of the shofar was to call together the congregation, to call together in time of joy, or solemnity.  In times of threat and war, the shofar would sound.

More than that, the sound of the shofar is linked to endtimes (ICor 15:52/Revelations 8:2-6) It calls those who are believers to sound the alarm! To tell the Gospel! To watch and be ready for the return of our Messiah!

The wonderful thing about these days of repentance is God’s preexisting attitude of love and mercy toward those who repent.  Our God is predisposed to forgive us as we draw closer to him at this time through our humility. It is God, himself, who comforts us, who provides salvation, and who gives us life!

In the month of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah, the shofars begin to be sounded, because biblicaly this holiday is the feast of trumpets, the name later changed to New Year because it is considered to be the head of the year, both the end and the beginning of a new year.  It is at this time the rabbis prepare the people for these days by reminding of us of God’s comforting presence, reading passages from Isaiah and Psalms 27 that remind us of the faithfulness and compassion of God.  Because we are hoping for a sweet new year we eat Challah, and apples dipped in honey. Some scriptural tie ins are how sweet God’s word is, how sweet is God’s consolation! Indeed it is sweet to know the presence of God, the consolation of God and the sweetness of his instructions.

I invite Christians to celebrate a Jewish Holiday that commemorates repentance and looks for the second coming, shouldn’t Christians who claim to believe that the Bible is their sole and utmost authority keep a holiday commanded in the Bible?? Perhaps a better question to ask is, how are we doing at repenting and preparing for the coming of the Lord? Are we fasting and praying as Jesus did before the feast of trumpets, and then looking for his return as prophesied will happen in the end times, the next time you hear the sound of the shofar you may be seeing the Son of Man coming in the clouds of Glory (Dan 7,). Will you be ready?

Good News!! But it’s not that new, really, it’s actually the OLD, OLD, news–But More of It!!

News is supposed to be New-but the Good News has been being proclaimed by the prophets for longer than we usually understand in Christian circles at least.

Re’eh,  by Rami Danielson & Rabbi Shapiro teaching can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm7WVc5q07Q that inspired much of the thinking in this article.

SEE!

“See I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse.”

Deuteronomy 11:26 Moses says to us, See! We must see more than the obvious. By faith we use our spiritual eyes to see what the prophets taught in these pictures, crossing over into a future rest-Shaul makes the connection between entering into the rest of the land  stated here in Deuteronomy with the rest that remains for the people of God in Psalms 95. Hebrews 4:2 tells us that Moses was given the same Gospel to teach as what the Apostles taught so why are Christians taught that there is a different gospel, the New Testament Gospel.  This generation, the rebellious generation, the people who always tried to do things their own way had hearts that were far from God. As a result they were constantly testing God and were not allowed to enter into the land.  Those who received the promise, by faith that they would enter into the land were promised a rest from their enemies, but they were to take the laws of Moses in with them. We are commanded to see, not with our own eyes but to see with spiritual vision, to use the eyes of faith.  Seeing with our own eyes could be taken to mean seeing only the obvious, seeing only the laws and the strictures of the law, seeing only the dry barren desert and not the fountains of water God would provide.  The fountains and the blessings they had not received yet could only be seen with the eyes of the spirit.  It is time to take off our “world” goggles and put on our “spiritual” goggles in order to see, without vision, His people perish!  Without faith it is impossible to please God. According to Rabi Danielson (above) Rabbi Shaul (known also as Paul), teaches about entering the rest of God, a teaching on this portion in Hebrews 3 and 4.  the Apostle to the Gentiles teaches us about this passage that those who had the Torah did not activate their faith along with it and thereby their bodies fell in the desert.  He tells us Today do not harden your hearts as the generation that did not have faith, in other words, the generation that did not see! This generation shares with our own generation the same spirit of rebellion against Moses and therefore against Messiah.

My Yoke

Yoke is another word for Torah.  Yeshua said take my yoke, my torah, upon you, and I will give you rest. The rest of Messiah is both the rest from trying to be good enough to cross over, and the rest from this life, to cross over from death into life.  To cross over from sin, to righteousness, but also the ultimate crossing over when we cross into the world to come through the power of the Resurrection.

Now we have one gospel, from the first Adam on, and it is given to us to hold onto:

We are abjured to cling to the original faith, which was Jewish- the jewishness of the faith has largely been strained out by the Catholic influence in Christianity’s formitive years. I Corinthians 15:1 and 2, and also Jude 1:3, and other places, we are told to hold fast to the word Paul preached.  Paul  preached that the resurrection of the saints was taught in the scriptures. WHAT SCRIPTURES?? My beloved, the OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES!! Churches and Jewish teachers as well teach that Paul taught a different gospel, but what if HE DIDN’T?? What if Paul merely returned to the true gospel, the gospel that the law must be lived with a heart of love toward God, What if the scriptures we are to hold onto, the first century scriptures, are the same ones Moses taught yet with the interaction of faith? What if Jesus didn’t come to start a new Christian religion, but merely fully teach the one that Moses tried to teach to a rebellious generation that rejected Messiah, as many now reject Moses in just as stiff-necked a fashion as those who rebelled in the desert so many still do today.  What would be the result of such a discovery? Is it possible that just as Jews should not reject their Messiah, their suffering messiah, gentiles should not reject Moses? Perhaps we should not reject the laws that Messiah obeyed and taught his disciples to obey.

Every Bible Scholar, Christian or Jewish admits that the first century believers were Jewish, many will tell you that it “took years for the church to shed it’s Jewish culture” (my paraphrase) as if there is something wrong with the Jewish culture that birthed it. Many people are adamantly opposed to returning to any of the feasts, and festivals and cling to a Sunday worship as their new sabbath in the belief that Jesus’ coming changed that.  I would propose that the truth is it is not Jesus but gentiles who changed the faith from being a Jewish faith in Messiah to a different faith, so called a new covenant.

Why does it matter? We enter into His rest.

All my life as a Christian, I believed the faith that was given to the Apostles, Jesus’ disciples was a gospel that was brand new, that had never before been preached, so when I read that the followers of Moses had been given the same good news, or gospel as we (Hebrews 4:2) I had no idea what to do with that.  What gospel was preached to the Hebrews in the wilderness? Apparently the same one Paul taught. Moses’ gospel, the Torah had included in it the story of Messiah, including his death and resurrection in three days, clearly, it is not obvious to eyes of flesh, but revealed only to those who look with spiritual eyes and see-every aspect of the teachings, from commandments to the furniture of the tent of meeting included some aspect of Messiah, the lampstands, the shewbread, the altar, the incense all speak of Messiah.  The commandments were never intended to be followed by rote, as if by going through all the right rituals a person could enter into HIS REST. God never intended His people to follow His commandments without faith, without love for Him.  Remember the first and foremost commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength, that is straight out of Deuteronomy.  It is the heart of love that the creator is after, first have a heart of love then we obey out of love. In reverse the same is true, we cannot have saving faith without showing good works.  James is clear on that issue (You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone 2:3 NASV). Paul asks, in the book of Romans chapter 9, “How is it that so many generations of faithful Jews did not attain the Righteousness God wanted them to have ( another way of asking why did they not enter into his rest, the promised land)?” Paul tells us,”..but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law, Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works they stumbled over the stumbling stone. (Romans 9:31,32)” They like the generation in the wilderness, did not combine their faith with their Torah.  Because we are saved by faith does not mean that we should therefore stop pursuing righteousness, no quite the contrary, now we can pursue the righteousness God intended in the law through the spirit of God indwelling us, by love and by faith.  We can pursue righteousness and faith together by keeping the faith given by Moses passed on by Paul as it was given Him by Jesus (Yeshua) and the faith we should be holding to firmly is in fact very Jewish! It is not a coincidence that the Messiah is the Lord of the Sabbath, the Lord of rest!!

Therefore let us be terrified of the possibility that, even though the promise of entering his rest remains, any one of you might be judged to have fallen short of it; for Good News has also been proclaimed to us, just as it was to them, But the message they heard didn’t do them any good, because those who heard it did not combine it with trust.  for it is we who have trusted who enter the rest. It is just as he said, “And in my anger, I swore that they would not enter my rest.” He swore this even though his works have been in existence since the founding of the universe. For there is a place where it is said, concerning the seventh day, “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” And once more, our present text says, “They will not enter my rest. (Hebrews 4:1-3 CJB)”. 

Cross Over

We must cross over, by faith, following the High Priest into the promised land. But we take the ark with us, we follow Messiah, our High Priest and in the ark was the covenantal laws of Moses.  The people crossed over and once on the other side they were to completely fulfill the Torah.  Much of it could not have been fulfilled until the people were in the land God gave them. Today, just as Avraham, did we cross over. Just as God’s people did, we carry the law over to the promised land with us but now it is on our hearts and it is fulfilled by the spirit of God working in us. The ark that was carried over the Jordan by the High Priests contained the commandments and today when we cross over, the law is put into our hearts as part of the terms of the new covenant and we follow our High Priest, Yeshua, our mediator who brought with Him complete fulfillment of the law. By fulfillment I do not mean like a contract where I fulfill my terms and then am no longer bound by them, but by fulfillment I mean He was the expression of how the law is to be carried out in daily living, a complete fulfillment or teaching of the holiness of God.

Abraham the first Hebrew, was an Assyrian until he “crossed over” and became the first Hebrew by crossing from unbelief to belief, from Ur, to the promised land by faith and by his obedience to cross over into the land God lead Him into. The word Hebrew literally means to cross over.

Deuteronomy 11:26 finds the people of God getting ready to cross over.  It is by crossing over the Jordan and entering the promised land that the people of Israel were to begin to implement all of the Torah they were being given.  It takes faith to follow the High Priest into the Jordan and cross over to the other side. Once on the other side we continue to fulfill the Torah but with more completeness because we have more understanding of it from our High Priest, from the Spirit of God, all of these expressions of the same God in different forms, one God.

One thing is clear from the text verse 4 and 5, that the Good News or Gospel of Messiah dying, being resurrected on the third day was all prophesied and taught in the Torah, if one can “see” it. It took faith goggles, and many refused to see then as now, “The message they heard (the message that was in Torah), did them no good because those who heard it did not combine it with trust. (Hebrews 4:1-3 CJB). Combining trust and revelation seems to indicate that there are two essential parts to saving faith, one is the Torah, and the other is faith. Contrary to what many believe I am of the opinion that Paul never taught the abolition of the law of Moses,  for God’s law is spiritual according to Paul (Romans 7:14), and when Paul teaches a new covenant in Hebrews 8, he quotes Jeremiah 31, the new covenant that puts the law, the same law, on the heart and mind. But, say some, Hebrews also says that a new priesthood brings about a change of law also. They take this to mean that now that we have a new high priest after the order of Melchizedek, the law is changed, by this they think the law is abolished, or obsolete-  Be careful about projecting onto the word of God what you already believe it to mean.  A change in the law, does not necessarily mean a fundamental change of the law, such as relegating it to the trash heap of obsolescence, because we know that the office of the high priest would change hands when a high priest died and a new high priest would be anointed. Paul is apparently referring to something that happened when the priesthood changed hands. A new priesthood may institute the law a little differently, I envision something like the Supreme Court of the United States does not abolish the constitution when new members are put on the court, but certainly how it applies the Constitution does bring about a change in the the law!  The changes, Paul explains, under the new order of Melchizedek, he lists several One, Yeshua is the high priest forever since he will never die, so there will not be a change in the heavenly priesthood anymore, two, he mediates for us in heaven the real holy of holies that the earthly temple is patterned after.  Second priests in the temple had to offer sacrifices constantly both for their own sins and for those of the people, whereas, the high priest Yeshua offers once and for all the perfect offering for all who would believe. Finally, it says that he is mediating the new covenant, he understands our weakness our flesh and he goes before the father as our mediator, the covenant is also better now because as Jeremiah 31 explains, the new covenant puts the law on our hearts and minds. Now we are indwelt by the spirit of God teaching us how to know God by knowing his Torah in our hearts! So we are back to not following as we do today, doing what ever seems right to us, but instead, we should decide Today to cross over the Jordan, to follow our high priest across through the waters of baptism to follow His ways and not our own! So here is how the new covenant has been improved on, we are brought near to the throne of grace, we enter in, we cross over, the covenant is now eternally established by the blood of Yeshua, our high priest. By faith in Him, we can enter into the covenant He made with Israel and with Judah, the covenant effected by His obedience to God and now His law is in our hearts to teach us Righteousness so we enter into His rest. “For what the law could not do weak as it was through the flesh (our flesh), God did sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:3,4 NASV. Walking according to the spirit may be the same as walking according to the law that is spiritual. It is time to take a hard look at our idea that crossing over into rest means leaving the laws of God on the other shore—

What was lost when Christianity split from Judaism? A priceless spiritual heritage!

“One of the most fundamental ideas in Judaism is that God created us to give us the ultimate gift: a relationship with Himself.”  Not because he needed us because He was lonely and needed someone to talk to.  This is a concept of the giving heart of God.  John 3:16, Once again, God so loved the world that he gave…… There seems to be no end to the giving of God.  How is it we do not love him more and feel that anything he might ask of us to give to him, or to give up, would be too great because of all He has given us! Life, breath, salvation, resurrection, peace, joy and as mentioned, a relationship with Himself!! Further, “Thus, connecting to God is what our soul yearns for. Every pleasure we experience and every meaningful relationship we form in this world is just a small taste of the ultimate relationship of our soul with our Creator.44 Luzzatto, Rabbi Moshe Chaim. Derech HaShem (The Way of God), 1:2:1. quoted by Rabbi Ken Spiro “Why Study History” Abraham, remarkable man that he was didn’t mind standing up and being different from everyone else in his culture and proclaim the one true God, for his faith, he was forgiven for his many flaws and given the covenant that we all can enter into by faith. He did not mind standing alone to cross over to the other side, and that is what the word Ivrit or Hebrew means, “other side”. According to Spiro, this also helps to explain the definition of the “chosen people”. Spiro explains, “Abraham, in effect, said to God, “I choose to live with the reality of You and to bring all of humanity back to that reality.” God then said to Abraham, “Then I choose you and your descendants.” But to be among the chosen people, a person has to cross over, a person has to believe God that he means what he says and says what he means, that we should and can obey him. That, in fact when we cross over, when we choose God who chooses us first, that we are rewarded with His presence.  WE act on our faith by being faithful.  The faith that saves is not a faith without works. The works do not save us, but they are the evidence that real faith is working its way out of the believer just as the almond buds worked their way out of Aaron’s rod.

Likening the coming out of Egypt that the Hebrew Children experienced to the coming out of Catholicism that the Protestant Church experienced there is one glaring commonality that must be noted.  Sadly, we see that while the people physically came out of Egypt, they did not wholeheartedly turn to following God.  Some of them brought with them their idol worship.  Some of the old comfortable ways of living in Egypt, ways that were pleasing to the “flesh”, that made sense to them in their age, ways that we now know were among the ways that seem right “…unto a man, but the ends thereof are death.” We liken this to the Reformation.  When Luther came out of the church, he never really intended to leave Catholicism.  His insistence on following scripture and conscience concerning the matter of indulgences forced him out.  He took with him certain other beliefs that he held to and passed on to his followers, among them, infant baptism and Sunday worship.  These were things that had become so ingrained and comfortable and made sense to these people in their time.  There were those, however who objected to these practices on the same basis that Luther had opposed selling indulgences, etc. Many people carried on the reformation, or attempted to, returning to Sabbath worship, rejecting infant baptism and other things that were not Biblical, but were merely “the traditions of men.”  Today Christians in most denominations now follow a calendar built by the Catholic Church and not by Biblical authority only.  So have believers really reformed their religion or is there still more work to do? Relying on the authority of the Catholic Church to institute holidays, feasts, and fasts is patently rejected by the church, the body of Christ, yet, they follow some of the Catholic Calendar, and reject the Biblical Calendar given in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Which is more authoritative to those who truly wish to follow the authority of scripture? Shouldn’t it be the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy rather than the traditions handed down to believers from the Catholic Church? I am not trying to bash the Catholic Church, its just too easy to do that, and there has been a lot of good done in the world because of those who truly desire to follow Christ, but isn’t it just as important to follow Christ by obeying His Commandments? Coming out of Egypt means giving up what was comfortable and fell in with the philosophies and traditions of men.  Coming out of Egypt means looking to God alone for instruction in how to please Him in how we live. So, get busy, open the book and see what God has for you and what God asks of you–you may be surprised!